Awake (Book 3)

Eighteen

There were too many people, and the one I needed to find was nowhere.

            “Ellie?”

            August’s voice crackled through the earpiece. I continued swimming through the throngs of people, keeping my head down, with no idea what I was doing. “I can’t do this, August. I’m not you. How do I find him?”

            “Think seclusion,” he replied after a moment. “You would think he’d be the pompous kind of asshole who likes to rub elbows, but he’s the exact opposite.”

            I narrowly avoided crashing into a lady with tall hair and an extremely poufy dress. She released a breathy cry and I moved right along, not chancing her eyes lingering too long on my face. “How do you know that?”

            “Reading people means living or dying in my life, El, you know that.”

            “Okay.” I stumbled free of the music and lights and laughter, and found myself creeping up a staircase. As silence overrode the thick din of the party, my nerves settled. “Hey, Augie?”

            “Yeah?”

            “I love you,” I said, lips curving in a loopy smile.

            His airy chuckle crackled the speakers. “I love you, too, sweetheart. Find your dad.”

            The staircase rounded up and up and up, and it felt like I’d climbed a mountain by the time I reached the next level. Again the lights were off, marking a no-go zone, which was, according to August, exactly where I needed to be. Portraits lined the halls, which were adorned with fancy carpets and other expensive antiques. Too much. My dream house was a small two-story by the sea, simple and homey, with all the necessities, and if I allowed myself to dream so far, filled with the love and laughter of children and family.

            Right, because you have such a loving family.

            I swallowed hard, ignoring those thoughts, because I did. You didn’t have to be blood to be family, as was proven to me over the last couple of years.

            A prickle crawled across my neck, morphing into a chill that raced down my spine. My gut twisted. Never good. But by the time I sensed him, and before I could dart into the closest room, a hand grabbed my upper arm and hauled me in there. I cried out, ankle turning in my heels as I was shoved inside. Immediately registering their inhibiting potential, I discarded them.

            “Ellie?” August spoke through the ear piece. “Ellie, what is it?”

            But I didn’t dare speak, not that I would have known what to say, anyway.

            Not when Dr. Edmund—sorry, my father—stood above me with an insidious smile on his face, hands folded behind his back, salt-and-pepper hair slicked diabolically away from his forehead.

            Oh, no.

            Oh, crap.

            Here’s the moment you were waiting for and you don’t even know what to do.

            But how could I? Here was my father—my father—who created me from unnatural fibers and was, more or less, in a sense, my womb. Lucille may have carried me, and she may have delivered me, but Dr. Edmund was my creator. He jacked me up on a plethora of drugs and substances and manipulated my formation even before I resembled a human being. So I wasn’t Lucille’s. I was his.